Kill Devil Falls contained San-Ho-Zay teases from Trey. During Wilson, Trey implored Mike to take a "heavy metal bass solo" (and Mike complied). The lyrics to Antelope were changed to "Been you to have any Mike, man?" followed by another bass solo from Mike.

Show Reviews

Just got back from Wachovia hall, left my waterlogged brain in the fog...

Many of us no doubt asked, how are they going to top the previous night? If Tuesday was sweatin' to the oldies, Wednesday had a more recent focus, and was evidence that the band continues to develop into a piledriver. Phish gets a bad rap for so-called repeats, but I think they are oblivious to that concept and play what they think people want to hear. I am thankful for that, as I generally get to one show per tour, and even though I hear every show, there is no substitute for being there--hearing it and digging Kuroda's indescribable lightscapes. Just about every song was nailed, or beyond. KDF was a surprise opener, well rocked. 46 Days was greasy. Sugar Shack demands precision and is getting it. Trey went for the record quiet spot in Divided Sky. Ocelot ended with a remarkable jam. Antelope was an absolute rage. Birds was tight as hell. Tweezer rattled the rafters--well, I'm 3-for-3 with Tweezers this year, I think I'll have a t-shirt made. YEM was stunning--Mr. Gordon laid the cold steel to it, capped by a remarkable solo. TTE--some people bitch about this sing but I remember when the Dead rolled out Terrapin and everyone was scratching their heads...Phish is polishing this every time they play it. This one shined. Oh! Sweet Nuthin' just makes me smile, made me think of a friend, and caused me to whip out 10-31-98 for the ride home.

Phish is working it out, big time. I don't know how...but I think the process of rehearsing and performing Exile for Festival 8 has got them steeped in the gutbucket. Listen to Trey, for God's sake, chunking those chords and reeling off shimmering leads as if Keith Richards and Mick Taylor were both fightin' over those fingers. They are ripping the roof off every venue. It is scary good to think what this band will be like by next summer.

My first show....the first show.....while it was certainly not one of the best shows they ever played (most of the people did not really enjoy it based on the reviews) it was my first. And just like the woman you lose your virginity to, you don't forget your first show. I was pretty much hooked right away.

The next night was a generally maligned show, due mostly to an ill-advise late second set placement of Time Turns Elastic and a questionably snoozy segment of tunes in the first set.

For my second Phish show, in retrospect, I probably would have chosen the first night in Philadelphia over the second. I didn't, but still had a great time at the show and can listen back, with a lot of fondness, to some of the great music that may have been overlooked when this show first dropped.

The KDF opener brings a lot of energy and some great Trey soloing. I really like KDF in the opening slot and this one does a great job. 46 Days keeps the heat coming. I love Sugar Shack, so I'll just leave it at that. The drop into Divided Sky from Halley's is just great, and this D-Sky is definitely solid.

Sleep Again - Ocelot - Train song... Let's skip ahead to the seriously hot Wilson > Antelope to end the set. Great great stuff. Snoozy segment aside, this first set is just fine.

The first three quarters of the second set feature some great, although not too exploratory, improv. Birds of a Feather gets deliciously weird - Trey gets whacky with the whammy after a key change (I like this kind of use of the Whammy pedal) while Fish and Mike hammer away at the groove, taking the pocket deeper and deeper. Mike comes in with the Meatball as the jam switches back to the original key and comes to a standard close. Really sweet jam, reminds me of a compact version of some of the darker, effects-laden groove jams of 99-00.

Farmhouse is Farmhouse. The Tweezer jam quickly builds up in typical fashion, until Trey hits a riff centered around the tonic that is reminiscent of the riff from 6-7-2009 Tweezer. The other guys build the progression beautifully around it, and eventually Trey takes off and the jam peaks rather nicely.

The composed section of YEM is pretty much nailed, and the jam starts off quiet with some bluesy, sneaky licks from Trey with his octave pedal. The jam slowly builds from there, and the peak is just fantastic, with Trey really slaying his solo and the band following his intensity at every step.

They followed up this great YEM with Esther. Who doesn't love Esther?

TTE. Okay. I like this song. I really do. I wish it wasn't shelved. I don't think the Phish fan community would implode if they broke it out once or twice a year. However, I have to agree with this show's naysayers when they say that this placement was bad – it was, especially after a quieter tune like Esther. Talk about sucking the energy out of the room. Yikes. The jam at the end has some energy to it, and eventually we are redeemed with a rocking Tweeprise.

Oh Sweet Nuthin encore… It's not a bad song, but maybe after the late set TTE the band could have come out with something a little more rocking, but you know how it is.

In summary, this was a really good show in spite of its flaws, and has lots of great music, especially the Birds, Tweezer, and YEM, and some really solid performances in the first set.

Part 2 of Cosmic Adventures in Synchronic Time by Steve Urban: Fall Tour 2009. Phish is back in Philadelphia for the first time in over 5 years. A group of friends and I decide it’s a perfect night to find the legendary “magical” Rhombus. Tony Smith, a pioneering figure of Minimalism in American visual art, created the black metal sculpture, titled “New Piece.” Its plaque tells us that in 1966 it was a “Gift of the artist in commemoration of Albert Einstein’s life and work. Presented on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Institute for Advanced Studies.” Unfortunately, a thick blanket of fog prevented us from finding the Rhombus on that dark autumn night.

"Down on myself again, step into space. Wondering how I can, alter my place. In this hull of creation, someone else made. Who was probably wondering, why I have stayed, and never progress, into things I could be. If I found the right partner or if I could see, beyond all four walls, into fog that surrounds, my need for redemption and pins me to the ground. When out there beyond, just a half step away, its something I touched but it slithered away. And it’s something to strive for, and someday ill see if I’m somehow alive for someone other than me."

Determined we returned to the Institute that weekend and found the Rhombus. However, later that evening on a rooftop in Lower Manhattan, a triangular spacecraft flew above our heads. It smoothly glided completely silent and could barley be seen. But we all saw it make a right turn and change direction. The stealth craft is known as “the Wedge” or TR-3B flying Black Triangle developed in the top secret black military as Project Aurora. Somehow this spacecraft and the Institute for Advanced Studies were connected but how? Whistleblower on the Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project, Al Bielek, claims to have been assigned to Project Invisibility at the Institute. Albert Einstein of course worked on these advanced projects during WWII. The encounter with the U.F.O. somehow got me back on my spiritual path. I remembered the vision of the unity consciousness grid, which I had outside MSG at Phish on New Years Eve 2002. For the first time I began to practice the merkaba meditation daily. Then one day at the Alley Pond Environmental Center in Queens, NY while sitting lotus position with Drunvalo Melchizedek’s Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life Vol. 2 on my lap I activated my merkaba. At exactly the same instant I heard the high-pitched cavitation of propellers from afar. Two black military Helicopters flew directly past me and quickly disappeared. The men in black were real and they knew how to time travel.

In Maureen St. Germain’s new book “Beyond the Flower of Life,” she writes, about the Merkaba Meditation, the Unity Consciousness Grid and even dedicates a full chapter to these Black Helicopters. She writes that, “The Christ Consciousness Grid is an etheric crystalline architectural structure of energy that envelopes Earth and holds the energy of… the perfected human. It could just as easily have been named the Buddha Consciousness or Mohammed Consciousness.” “The grid came from a version of the future where mankind achieved Christ Consciousness… and we, humanity, built it.” We recently spoke over the phone and she said that, “there are many versions of the future out there and the ascended masters tuned to the one where humanity made the ascension.”

Furthermore, Drunvalo Melchizedek writes in “Serpent of Light: Beyond 2012” that the Unity Consciousness Grid is a network of energetic connections between sacred temples and sites around the globe and special crystals which link them, creating a grid which supports an increasing, shared, "unity consciousness." This grid is a tool to assist humanity in the evolutionary process and the shift in consciousness that will occur sometime within "The End of Times" window lasting from 2007-10-24, when the Hopi prophecy of the Blue Star was fulfilled, to 2014-10-24 and not necessarily on the date when the wheels of the Maya calendar align on 2012-12-21.

You may be asking yourself, “How does all this relate to the band Phish?” and “Why would the ascended masters want me to share this information with the Phish community?” I had an incredible experience, almost a year after our visit to the Rhombus while in Amherst, MA during Phish’s Fall tour on 2010-10-24. I was meditating within my merkaba, as well as doing the unity breath meditation, and rainbow bridge meditation. There were 3 star tetrahedrons one stationary and 2 spinning in opposite directions, which merged with the Octahedron, a Rhombic Dodecahedron, a Stellated Dodecahedron and a Icosahedron combining to create great complex polyhedrons. I visualized the rainbow bridge around the earth, around myself and then placed the symbol inside of my heart chakra. I merged the sacred space of my heart’s toroidal field with my activated merkaba. At that moment of synchronization I felt the most beautiful feeling of spiritual bliss achieved by a love for all living things. A rhomboidal hexahedron or rhombohedron aka the Rhombus was there too with the Unity Consciousness Grid. Here was the “ ‘solution’ to help us avoid probable self-destruction!” Divided Sky, The Wind Blows High. Divided Sky, The Wind Blows High.

Part 1: 10/21/96 and 12/31/02 MSG New York, NY *Cosmic Adventures in Synchronic Time was originally published in Surrender To The Flow

On the floor for this show, and after the night before I was psyched, but...
I was letdown by this show, especially after the previous night's sets. Sleep Again totally sucked the energy out of the place, as did TTE. I've come around on TTE after some later performances of it, but this one just didn't have it. I just don't like Farmhouse that much either. I am also not a fan of Esther which I guess puts me in a minority. Those 4 songs killed the show IMO, especially Sleep Again, horrible placement for it and not a very good song to begin with. Everything else was well played, but nothing that is an absolute must hear.

wow.....still no Roggae.... one of the tightest songs from the 1998 period....personally one of my favorate songs....they havent played it since 2004 and i hope to here it durring the NYE run!!! anyone else dissapointed about not hearing roggae in 2009??

This show had potential but overall it was boring. The highlight was a high energy badass Wilson>Antelope. They all sounded amazing and the energy was great. Tweezer > YEM > Esther was great as well, but Time Turns Elastic despite it's intricacies is very boring and cheesy and seems to never end. Divided was good but didn't seem to shine as Sleep Again is as it says, a time to "sleep" again. All of the high energy created by divided seemed to get sucked out of the room and ocelot and train song did nothing to pick it back up. Wish I went to the tuesday show instead.

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